Cutting the cord is a hard thing to do, but ditching cable and sticking to the most basic television entertainment setups are becoming easier to manage thanks to services like Tablo. Designed as a way to stream free over-the-air (OTA) TV to mobile devices, Tablo can be just the sort of thing to keep cord cutters connected to their favorite network programming and DVR video streamed to a mobile device or web-connected television.
Tablo works by connecting a box with DVR capabilities to your home internet setup. The hardware features two or four tuners that can stream live network television and record other channels, so a two-tuner model can watch one program and record another while a four-tuner can view or record up to four programs simultaneously. It works only with OTA television, so don’t count on watching cable programming like ESPN, HBO, Bravo or anything that doesn’t come from the major networks (the Daily Show appears in the demo below, but it is OTA programming in Canada, where Tablo’s creators are based). The Tablo apps for Android and iOS include guides that let users browse schedules for what’s available and discover content that they can then set to record or watch on those devices.
